Molly Zuckerman-Hartung’s "The Large Drop-cloth," courtesy of Duet
Duet Gallery’s current show, If Not Now, When? features four artists who contest the anxiety of art-making through material investigations and acts of play. Curated by Eve Maret, the pop-up group exhibition includes Rennie Behrend, Laura Bise, Blair Tramel, and Molly Zuckerman-Hartung.
Laura Bise creates pieced together, minimalist constructions crafted from Plexiglas and other industrial materials. In Untitled II (part of series "Light Mediation"), sheets of red, opaque and transparent acrylic glass are laser cut into organic, indistinct shapes. The abstruse layers stand upright, separated and secured by rectangular black pieces that form the base. The sleek sculpture is placed on a pedestal, and a few feet away on the floor is a gray, rock-like form made from foam insulating sealant and built-up layers of matte gray paint. Another work, Reliquary is a pastiche of painting and sculpture traditions. The horizontal composition is made from a narrow, mint-green board and a larger sheet of smoky gray Plexiglas; both rest on metal brackets secured to the wall. Beneath the translucent, gray surface, a line of blue LED lights shines through, acting like a mark. A photo of a potted fern is in the bottom right corner, also illuminated by LED lights, and a golden, Pollock-esque drip is ingenuously splattered overhead. Above Reliquary is a painted black panel with horizontal, red and white bands. Below, two rectilinear forms lie on the floor and lean against the wall. One has a graffiti-style, provisional mark on its mirrored surface.
Arranged in a line, Rennie Behrend’s series of modestly sized paintings contain kaleidoscopic pours of acrylic and mixed media on square, panel supports. Some are paired into diptychs and have corresponding palettes. Another, Ocean, remains an independent piece. In it, streams of white, pale blue and chalky green radiate inward, gravitating toward and wavering around a pool of dark blue in the composition’s center.
Across the gallery, Blair Tramel’s slightly off-kilter wall piece is an accumulation of disparate components. Surreal, black and white photographs are placed beside found children’s drawings that are embellished by the artist with macabre illustrations. These are all mounted in cheap, thrift shop frames and crammed next to each other in a chaotic, irregular grid. Interspersed within the clutter, abject dioramas compiled from discarded dolls and toys depict domestic interiors with perverse undercurrents. In them, dismembered heads and traffic cones are situated alongside furniture and decorative wallpaper, a doll is augmented with large breasts and pubic hair and dressed in a fishnet bodystocking, and faux fur becomes repulsive, knee high, shag carpet. Around the corner, two small, grungy TV/VCR combos sit on wooden, classroom chairs and play Tramel’s videos, Matterday and Moxi. The stop motion animations look similar to her dioramas. Dolls move through constructed sets with jarring, seizure inducing movements. Paper cut-out characters go back and forth in a disjointed, subtitled conversation. Elevator music mingles with a child’s voice reciting repeated monologues, applause, and other indecipherable sounds; blaring sirens become a scream. The discordant soundtrack permeates the gallery.
The highlight of the exhibit, Molly Zuckerman-Hartung’s, The Large Drop-cloth, is an unstretched 8 x 10’ drop cloth, altered and loosely secured to the wall. Bold, acrylic washes seep into unprimed canvas, creating a series of multicolored, vertical stripes that move across its surface, resulting in a rainbow-like, polychromatic composition. Some stripes have several, serial cuts that run down their length. The ragged slits reveal the back of the substrate, exposing other bright colors or raw fabric. Wooden dowels, stained olive green, are attached at its upper corners, suggesting that the semi-sculptural painting could serve an alternative purpose, such as a banner in a parade. A smaller painting, Reading Lacan is made of sewn strips of fabric pieced together and stretched. Aluminum spatters cascade across gray cotton, and repeated green smudges act like punctuation marks, creating points of emphasis throughout the allover composition. Seams run horizontally, fragmenting a vertical stripe. In the upper-left corner is a photo transferred image of a woman sitting in an iridescent, domestic interior and part of the titular text is shown backwards. On an adjoining wall, an inconspicuous sketch depicts a seated, female nude on a small sheet of handmade, lavender colored paper. Using bleach and watercolor, Zuckerman-Hartung draws with seeming effortlessness, portraying the subject with a few glowing, Matissean contours.
Although the artists in “If Not Now, When?” differ from each other in their practices and levels of experience, they are united in a common sensibility of thinking through making. Questions develop as they respond to the immediacy of working in studio. Vigorously engaged with materials and processes, Behrend, Bise, Tramel, and Zuckerman-Hartung reconsider and revive canonical and personal histories. Uncertainties emerge, providing motivation to propel them along unexpected trajectories, carrying over concepts from previous works and into new, indeterminate realms.
Duet is located at 3526 Washington. Gallery hours are Thursday, Friday and Saturday, noon to 5 p.m., or by appointment.
